text: Prior to the industrial period, water had been extracted by whichever local community lived around it. As the industrial period progressed however, this view began to be replaced by a more economic oriented approach. Today, most water goes through a complicated industrial process that begins with its extraction and ends in a complicated process involving pipes, dams, and other sorts of unnatural facilities. Even fresh water that is located in rivers and lakes must somehow be extracted.  In general these considerations involve the use of land, labor and capital thereby replacing the notion of a common resource into a value based product. Desalination and desalination plants also play a major role.